


Scampfired

by Origami_Breath



Series: Billdipweek2017: Halloween Prompts [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: BillDipWeek2017, Halloween Prompts, M/M, Older Dipper Pines, Scampfire, Triangle Bill Cipher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 09:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12650859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origami_Breath/pseuds/Origami_Breath
Summary: Dipper goes out for a survival camping trip because reasons, Bill shows up just to be annoying.





	Scampfired

Dipper pulls out a second camera because he’s prepared for everything and he foresaw Mabel breaking what she believed to be his only camera. **  
**

“You’re such a boy scout!” she says, making grabby hands at the camera and bouncing in place, unmoved by her own previous destruction. Dipper hesitates before reluctantly handing it over and has to remind himself that he has another camera stowed away so _if_ Mabel breaks this one it won’t be the end of the world. Though knowing that his supply is getting low does give him some anxiety. 

“Thanks, Mabel,” he says grudgingly, rolling his eyes and it makes Soos laugh, patting him hard on the back.

“Yeah dude! But without all that nature stuff!”

Mabel laughs along, turning around to grin sunnily at him and says, “true dat!”

For some reason it ticks Dipper off and he ends up pouting for the rest of their adventure, barely even bothering to put up a fight when Mabel breaks the second camera and gets Dipper to hand over his third.

“I could survive a night in the wilderness,” he says when they’re heading home, his long lasting anger turning into stubborn determination.

“Sure you could bro-bro,” is Mabel’s flippant response. All it does is make Dipper more resolute.

***

“I’m going out to prove you all wrong! Don’t wait up!” Dipper shouts over his shoulder, shutting the door on Mabel’s amused yet flabbergasted expression.

***

Dipper walks for as long as he can and making sure that he sticks to one direction so he doesn’t get turned around. He knows the woods like the back of his hand but he knows the consequences of overconfidence and does not want to thrash his only chance at proving everybody wrong.

So he does what all the nature shows tell him to do. He goes by a body of water -the lake- and makes sure to stay a distinguished amount away from the water so there’s no way that some mysterious lake wave ruins his day and carries him away into the middle of it in the middle of the night.

So sue him, he’s paranoid. But paranoia will keep him alive.

So he sets up a tent. Perfectly, he may add. He roots the stakes and he makes it taunt and the tent is looking picture perfect in a matter of 40 minutes or so. Grunkle Stan would be proud, he decides.

So he goes about doing campy things, getting the food he plans on eating for the night and putting it off to the side and then ties the rest of his food up in a tree with a fancy knot that he googled and practiced prior to his hike to his camp spot.

It’s only when he has to set the fire that he runs into trouble. Because he can’t exactly practice making fire in the Mystery Shack, so he had to slum it and just critically eye the way it’s done a hundred times and mimicking it sans stick and stone. And now he notices that that’s doing jack-diddly-squat because nothing’s happening and he keeps dropping his stick and stone. He even brought a lighter! But all it does is catch fire for a second before snuffing out. And well, he can’t exactly cook his meal if he doesn’t have a fire. He can’t stay warm unless he has a fire. His survival is all depending on whether or not he has a fire!

Huffing he stands up and paces a few times in front of his bundle of sticks and messy rock circle, taking his hat off momentarily to run his hand through his hair a couple of times, pulling on the strands when they snag between his fingers.

“Come on, you can do this, prove all of them wrong and be the best survivalist Gravity Falls has ever seen. All you gotta do is start a fire. Just a fire! You’ve seen this done a hundred times. Hold the stick steady and then create a strong enough friction and-”

“Pine Tree!”

Dipper startles hard, dropping his hat in the dirt and body tensing for a fight but it only takes a second for that annoyingly high pitched voice to register and he’s back to slumping his shoulders. Narrowing his eyes and watching Bill hover with his stupid triangle body he picks up his hat and dusts it off before setting it firmly on his head.

“What do you want, Bill?”

“Can’t I come see what my favorite flesh bag is doing? All alone? In the scary woods?”

“I’m surviving,” he says, turning away and dropping back down onto his knees in front of the fire. Maybe being irritated with Bill will give him enough energy to start up some good friction.

“Can’t be doing that well!” Bill says, rubbing his hands together, his eye squinting in humor.

“What do you know?” Dipper says without thinking and then immediately closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. Predictably, Bill gets a kick out of the question.

“Everything! Like how you haven’t even lasted a night without running into the most dangerous thing out here!” Bill barely pauses to let Dipper ask the courtesy question of what the most dangerous thing out here is before he’s shouting out an obnoxious: “me!”

“I’m trying to start a fire,” Dipper says instead of egging Bill on even more.

“Why didn’t you just say so!” Bill snaps his fingers and a burst of blue flames lick up a good 6 feet into the air and Dipper scrambles backwards with a shout. Bill just keeps laughing, the yellow of him glowing in pulses to let Dipper know that he was having the time of his life.

Puffing out his cheeks he gets up on his feet and turns on Bill, pointing his finger at Bill’s eye threateningly. It only serves to make Bill’s eye scrunch up in amusement and a silent challenge. There’s only so far these jokes can get before Bill decides to make it truly malicious and Dipper doesn’t want him hanging around any longer than he already has.

So he decides to choose his next words carefully enough that Bill will get bored and just poof away on his own accord. Opening his mouth and taking a deep breath he’s interrupted by a heavy splash to his left.

There’s something in the lake.

Forgetting about Bill in order to hastily reach into his bag for his camera and flashlight he runs out to the edge, turning on the light and frantically trying to find the source of the splash by following the centre point of the waves.

Bill’s laughing again, which makes Dipper think that maybe it’s something dangerous. But also maybe interesting.

“What is it?” he asks, barely taking his eyes off of the lake. Bill’s still laughing but he doesn’t sound like he’s looking over at what Dipper is. So he starts to turn and only gets an eyeful of Bill’s…eye. “Hey!”

“Pine Tree, I could tell you what’s out in that lake, but I can guarantee your brain would ooze out your ears.”

Dipper turns back around, feeling the familiar fast pace of his heart in anticipation. Could it really be that good? Should he go get Mabel? But what if it goes away in the time that Dipper goes all the way back to the Mystery Shack?

“Is it dangerous?” Dipper continues, swiping the roller on his disposable camera frantically. Bill laughs again.

“Only when it’s hungry. Or you touch it!”

“What-” Dipper turns when he notices that Bill’s nowhere near him again, instead he’s idly throwing Dipper’s entire marshmallow supply into the open flame.

“Hey! I was going to eat those!”

“I’m just roasting ‘em, Pine Tree!” Bill says, that pulsing glow is back. Dipper pauses, a rush of amusement coming over him and he tries to cover up his snort with his hand. This makes Bill’s surface turn a slight red, his eye darting over to Dipper. “Somethin’ funny there?”

“That’s not how you roast a marshmallow,” Dipper says, sitting on the log opposite of Bill because no way is he letting his guard down. He’s going to keep his eye on Bill while they’re near his demon fire. Right now it looks normal, but who knows? Looking up he catches Bill’s…eye, and pointedly sticks a marshmallow at the end of a stick and hovers it over the fire instead of just throwing it in.

Bill’s surface tints a slight red before snapping back into the pulsing gold of cheer.

“I gotta tell ya Pine Tree, you mortals sure take too long to roast.” Bill throws a handful of marshmallows back into the fire, cackling gleefully. Dipper stands up to get closer to the fire, narrowing his eyes at Bill.

“It’s so it gets a good golden color on the outside and soft and mushy on the inside.”

“You’re already soft and mushy on the inside! All I gotta do is stick ya and you ooze!”

“The marshmallow, Bill.”

“These things?” Bill squeezes the white treat between his…fingers. Dipper’s not sure what to call them.

Dipper lets out a defeated sigh, moving forward and reluctantly getting up in Bill’s space so he can take away the marshmallow bag entirely before he backs away slowly to return back to his initial spot. However, he misplaces his foot, feeling the heat of the fire and before he can correct himself the fire reaches out and grabs him.

The pain is instantaneous.

Shouting in alarm, and trying to scramble backwards and actually having to physically yank his foot out from the man-eating fire as Bill just laughs and laughs. Not that Dipper can really focus on what kind of tool Bill is when he’s too busy trying not to die from being eaten by his actual campfire.

Speaking of, the thing seems to have tired from pretending to be a docile piece of fire because it pops up from the ground readily, the fire formation making it look like the thing is licking out its tongue in anticipation. Dipper thinks he’ll die from a heart attack before anything else. Ignoring the throbbing in his leg and Bill’s annoying laugh he tries to get to the lake because surely that’ll be the thing’s weakness. He can only vaguely remember reading about it in his journal but he was stupid enough to shrug it off because he’d assumed it’d be easy to spot.

Dipper is a little ashamed to admit that the second he’s down for the count he just closes his eyes and covers his face. Though not even seconds after he’s given up Bill’s laughing is abruptly cut off and the heat that Dipper was feeling at his toes moves past his entire body before he hears a loud splash in the background. Slowly Dipper removes his hands from his face, staring up, perplexed, as Bill pretends to be grooming his nails. Which Dipper knows he doesn’t have. What.

“What..?”

“I just saved your life!” Bill says, not looking at him and otherwise not showing any exterior emotion a triangle could possibly convey, but for some reason he knows that Bill is pleased with himself. “And I’m feeling a little generous, so I’ll just take the IOU.”

“You saved me,” Dipper repeats, slowly, still laying on the ground and it takes Bill a second to stop pretending to be a jerk before he looks down at Dipper, seeming confused.

“Did it overheat your brain or somethin’, get up.”

Dipper doesn’t, just kind of stares and Bill stares back. He’s not exactly sure what to think, only that Bill Cipher, dream demon extraordinaire just saved Dipper’s life and doesn’t even seem to realize how out of character that is. And Dipper also knows that Bill’s not really expecting a favor back because they certainly didn’t shake hands. There’s no deal here. Bill just…saved him.

Bill seems to catch on and his surface turns a pink and Dipper only has a second to process what it could possibly mean before he hears:

“Click!”

Both Dipper and Bill turn to look at the bushes where Mabel is peaking out, her bedazzled camera covering half her face and a backpack slung over her shoulder.

“ _Mabel_!”


End file.
